The global level of evidence on the effects of therapeutic education in persons with spinal cord injury is low because of the number of studies and their low statistical power and requires additional studies. However, the analysis of the literature allows for discussing the organization of therapeutic education in clinical practice.
Study design: Retrospective study. Objectives: To determine the potential impact of rehabilitation care on associated symptoms and functional improvements of paraplegic patients with metastatic spinal cord compression. Setting: CMN Propara, Montpellier (France). Measures: Demographics, Functional Independence Measure (FIM), Frankel Modified Score and Visual Analog Scale (VAS) for pain, intercurrent adverse medical events and neurological outcome, duration of stay, survival time, rehospitalization in a non-Spinal Cord Injury unit, number of contracts defining the patients rehabilitation goals, number of contracts defining the patients duration of stay within the rehabilitation center. Results: We reviewed the charts of 26 patients. The initial neurological profile was paraplegia or paraparesis for 24 patients and quadriparesis for 2 patients. Regarding functional improvements: four patients demonstrated a poor functional evolution, five patients showed no functional improvements or very slight improvements and all the other patients showed an increase in their overall functional aptitudes. At the end of the stay, 14 patients were urinary independent. Our study reports 52 rehospitalizations in an another unit and 101 outpatient visits during their rehabilitation stay in a physical medicine and rehabilitation (PM&R) center. For the 14 patients who were deceased at the time of data collection, the median survival rate post-paraplegia was 12.7 months. A total of 12 of the 14 patients spent more than a third of their remaining survival time in a rehabilitation center. Discussion: Compared to the patients' life expectancy, their stay in a rehabilitation center is too long and prevents them from spending time with family and loved ones. The occurrence rate of the associated symptoms is high because of both cancer-related disorders and neurological disorders caused by the spinal cord lesion. PM&R professionals are faced with patients affected by chronic pain and fatigue as well as frequent rehospitalizations, short stays and outpatient stays, in the primary oncology unit. This study focuses on the need to privilege the patients' comfort over their functional rehabilitation.
67 patients with 76 repaired flexor tendons have been reviewed after a mean interval of 26.4 months. 160 tendons to 100 fingers, and 16 flexor pollicis longus tendons were repaired. When evaluated by Buck-Gramcko criteria, the functional results in 92% of the fingers and 69% of the thumbs were graded as excellent or good. Patients with partially divided tendons fared no better than those whose tendons were completely divided. The results of repair in the little finger were less satisfactory than in other fingers.
Our easy-to-use system for evaluating the nonfunctional hand (MHS) was shown to be very effective in demonstrating the improvement of the postoperative result. The originality of our series was to show that Braun's original operation goals were only exceptionally and remotely achieved and that an additional technical procedure must be nearly systematically considered. All the patients in our series were followed up in multidisciplinary team visits where the patient's family and caretakers were encouraged to give their point of view. Level of evidence Level IV. Retrospective study.
There is no scientific evidence for validating this type of pain management care. However, the high level of evidence of the articles studying the efficacy of these therapies in patients with chronic pain suggest that it could be applied to SCI patients. These techniques must be developed in France and further studies should be conducted on SCI patients affected by neuropathic pain.
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